It’s hard to believe, but today it’s a whole year since my novel was published.
In that time, a lot has happened and my life has become much more focused on books and writing. While those things were always important, they’re more than that now. Any spare time I have goes on writing or progressing my writing career in some way.
It’s hard work, but it’s given me a sense of value and authenticity I didn’t have before.
Over the last year, I’ve met a lot of writers and readers and I’ve learned a huge amount about the publishing industry. I wanted to share a few of those things with you.
Manage your expectations
This is hands down, the single most important thing I’ve learned as a published author. After years writing the book, crowdfunding it, editing it and preparing for release, I had a lot of time to fantasise about what being published would be like. We all want people to read our work and sometimes I would fantasise about selling tens of thousands of copies and how amazing that would feel. But I also knew, without being negative, that it was unlikely to happen.
One of the benefits of publishing with Unbound is that we have a Facebook group where the authors share their experiences and offer advice. I spent about a year and a half in the group before The Disappeared was published, so I had a lot of time to follow the experiences of the other authors and get a sense of what publishing would be like and how many books I might sell. That really helped me to set my expectations.
And I set my expectations low. In fact, I trained myself to expect pretty much nothing, other than that I would need to do a lot of work myself to promote the book. I set sales targets (I’ll come to this later) and I told myself any books sold would be something to be proud of.
This proved to be a good strategy, because anything good that has happened, any sales made, feel like a bonus.
Build a network
If you want your book to reach readers, you’re going to need help. If you have a great deal with one of the big publishers, then chances are you’ll have an instant network of publishing professionals to help sell your book. But if, like me, you’re with a smaller publisher who doesn’t have a big marketing budget and you don’t have tons of industry contacts, then a lot of the promotional work will be up to you.
I’m fortunate to be from the North East of England, where there are fewer writers and publishing types, so it’s easier to make connections. Before my book was published, I started to reach out to local libraries and bookshops to organise events and I had some fantastic experiences. Building relationships with these people meant I had advocates who were willing to put my book in front of readers I would never have reached alone. They brought fresh opportunities my way and made everything a lot more fun. I’m so grateful to everyone who supported me and my efforts at book promotion, you know who you are!
Oh and it might sound obvious, but be nice to people too, it goes a long way if you can be kind and accommodating of others. If you’re horrible, people will remember.
It might take a while for sales to grow
When my book first came out, nothing much happened. There was no big promotional push and no press, so nobody really knew it existed, other than the poor people who follow me on Twitter and see my ramblings. For a while, I checked my Amazon rankings obsessively and knew that I hadn’t sold many books. It was incredibly disheartening and I went through a massive down period. After working so hard for months, the launch was a huge anti-climax.
Before you publish a book, there’s a lot of time spent preparing and that gave me plenty of time to think about my goals. Unless you self-publish, writers don’t tend to get access to regular sales figures, instead you get a report twice a year that lists your royalties with a breakdown of the number of books sold. Mine come at the end of April and the end of October. With my launch date being 2 May, I knew I’d have a full six month to worry about sales, so I decided to set myself targets to help manage my expectations.
If you’ve ever searched online for details on how many copies the average book sells, you’ll know it’s difficult to get a solid answer. It varies widely and the industry isn’t hugely transparent on this. Initially, I set my target at 1,000 copies sold, but that felt too much, so I decided to make it 500, with my super impossible dream stretch target being 1,000. But based on the experiences of other authors in our Facebook group the week of launch, I ended up revising it down massively. Reality hit me hard and I just didn’t see how I could ever hope to sell that many books, so I dropped the target right down to 50 and a stretch target of 100. If I sold that many copies, I would consider my book a success.
Well, after a full year, I can say I’ve met my original dream goal and have now sold over 1,000 copies of The Disappeared. This might not seem like much to someone with their eyes on a six-figure book deal, who dreams of being a bestseller, but for my little book that had no real campaign behind it, it feels like a huge achievement. And the last few months sales on Amazon have become steady, so I’m hoping that number will grow even further – and I haven’t jinxed myself by writing this (touch wood).
All launches are not created equal
Sometimes I think there are two tiers of publishing: there are the lead titles with the major publishers – the ones you see in all the national newspapers, on billboards and discussed constantly on social media – and everyone else.
At the start of last year, I spent a lot of time reading lists of books to look forward to in 2019. I would have loved to see my book there, but that wasn’t the publication deal I had. No one was hyping me or my book and in some ways that’s a blessing, because there’s no pressure. It means you don’t have the endless rounds of glowing reviews and articles, but it also means you aren’t exposed to the level of negativity you might get if readers don’t enjoy your book. It also means there’s no pressure for book two, which is nice.
But launching a book is still a personal highlight, even if you don’t share it with the world. One of the best things I did was film an unboxing video when my author copies of The Disappeared arrived. It might seem self-indulgent, but I look back at that video sometimes and it never fails to make me happy. And seeing the lovely people who pledged for my book during crowdfunding receive their copies and share photos and comments on social media was one of the most fantastic feelings.
Facebook kindly reminded me it’s a whole year since I got the first author copies of my book. Rewatching my unboxing video always makes me happy, so taking a moment away from lockdown to enjoy it 😍🔥
Authors: always film this moment, it’s awesome! pic.twitter.com/PQ7fHrww6b
— Amy Lord (@tenpennydreams) April 12, 2020
Don’t focus too hard on reviews
Ah reviews! Of course, we all secretly wish for endless five star feedback and hope that we’ll avoid anything too negative. It’s actually quite tough to persuade readers to leave a review at all, so if you want to help out a poor struggling writer, you know what to do!
When my book was first published, I read reviews often. I quickly found Goodreads to be bad for my mental health: not the reviews so much, as the constant need to refresh the app, which lags and doesn’t always show new reviews right away, although you can see one is there from the change in your book’s score.
I’ve had some great reviews and some less good ones. But I was surprised to find myself able to deal with them reasonably well.
If you’re going to have a career as a writer, you need to detach from bad reviews as much as possible, because you will get them, it’s inevitable. And it’s often not personal. If someone doesn’t like your book, chances are it’s down to personal taste or how they have interpreted something.
I’ve had a few reader comments that the characterisation in The Disappeared bothered them and they found Clara’s behaviour to be unrealistic. But other people have praised the characters and their depth. It’s incredibly subjective and part of me quite likes gaining an understanding of how different people respond to my writing, as it helps me think about what I might do better next time.
Ultimately, I want a long career as a writer and if I’m constantly evolving and improving, then this should be the worst book I ever write (other than the terrible unpublished one that lives in a drawer, of course).
Be proud of your success
I’ve never been the world’s most confident person, but publishing a book has done a huge amount for my sense of self. It took me a while to notice as it was subtle, but I’ve become a lot more confident and accepting of myself as ‘a writer’.
Publishing a book is a form of validation: of your hard work, of your writing, of your ability to tell a story.
But publishing is also one of those journeys that never ends. There’s always something more to achieve, something to do better, something else to strive for and that can wear you down.
It’s so important to step back sometimes and remember what you’ve achieved. My husband likes to tell me to think back a year or two or five and think about that person and how thrilled she would be to be where I am now. And he’s right. Who knows what might happen next?
Publishing a book is a huge, life changing thing. Something most people spend a lifetime dreaming about and working towards. It’s something to be incredibly proud of every day.
So that’s what I’ve learned in my first year as an author.
If you’ve read this far and you haven’t yet read The Disappeared, then I’m celebrating my one year bookiversary with a giveaway. If you’d like to win a signed copy of the book, you can enter using the plugin below. UK readers only!